Regions

Connecticut

From Wazeopedia

This page serves as the primary resource for editors of Connecticut. Review all the sections to better understand how the guidelines for this state might deviate from the overall USA or worldwide guidelines. If you have any comments or questions about this page or state refer to the community links below.

Speed Limits in CT
Only the CT DOT Office of the State Traffic Administration has the authority under statute to establish speed limits on public streets so all approved/valid speed limits are listed on the OSTA website for both the state highways and city/town roads/streets. At this time, only add/validate speeds that are listed at http://www.ct.gov/dot/cwp/view.asp?A=1394&Q=259540 to the Waze Map.
In the event of conflicting information, use the online list & contact with a Local State Manager.

Functional Classification
As of 2015-03-01 the functional classification project is complete! Please contact an SM before changing the classification of any public driveable segment. Please do not use any auto-locker scripts in Connecticut.

Introduction

Mapping resources

Before editing the maps in Connecticut, be sure to fully review and understand the editing manual.

The Waze user community follows the Waze etiquette guidelines discussed in the Wiki. Be sure to familiarize yourself with these guiding principals while editing the maps and this Wiki, as well as when communicating with other Waze users.

MTE Resources

Hartford Marathon Foundation - The race authority for many running/trilithon events in CT. Very good resource for road closures for their events (go to the race's main page, then Race Day, then Road Closures - details are usually released two to four weeks before the event.

Running in the USA - Useful as a list of races to find websites/contact info for closures. This link is set to a 50 mile radius around Hartford, but it is adjustable once there. DO NOT USE AS SOLE SOURCE OF INFORMATION

Community

The Waze forum is a great place to find answers to previously asked questions and also a place to ask new ones. Below are links to the forums specific to Connecticut.

Major roads

State routes in Connecticut should be named using the "SR-xx" short name format, consistent with national guidance. Though the local team is working to standardize on short format naming, editors will likely encounter legacy and long format naming conventions (most commonly "State Rte" or "State Hwy"). Editors should take great care when updating names to the short format, as breaks in continuity can cause undesirable routing consequences.

Review the Wiki guidelines for non-drivable roads to ensure compliance with the general guidelines.

Additional notes for this state

Dirt Roads - In Connecticut all roads that are normally unpaved are considered dirt roads as this is how drivers expect the "Avoid Dirt Roads" feature to behave. These roads are shown on the CT DOT Functional Classification Maps as dashed lines.

Toll Roads - There are currently no tolls in Connecticut. No segments within the state of Connecticut should be marked as 'Toll Road'

Pedestrian Boardwalk and Walking Trail - These should not be mapped without approval from a State Manager for CT. These segment types can cause routing issues even when not connected to a driveable segment.

Locking standard

In Connecticut we have a set minimum standard for locking roads based on segment type. Any road of a certain segment type must be locked at least to the rank (level) in the chart below. Roads may be locked higher for protection and special situations (areas with construction, tricky design, frequent mistakes, imaging inaccuracies, and the like), but should not be locked lower.

A great time to implement these locks is while bringing the road types of an area into compliance with the current US road type standards (FC and highway systems). Lock the roads based on type after they've been set to current US road type standards.

Connecticut Minimum Locking Rank Standard

Segment Type

Statewide

Freeway

5

Ramp

Highest rank of connected segments

Major Highway

3

Minor Highway

3

Primary Street

1 (Auto)

Street

1 (Auto)

Private Road

1 (Auto)

• • • • Ferry • • • •

5

|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| Railroad |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|

2

Note: Do Not Mass Edit just to update locks to these standards, these can be adjusted as you find them while editing other aspects of the segments such as FC, speed limits, naming, etc.

Some segments still warrant higher locks and care should be taken when setting segment lock to these standards to look for and protect these special setups with higher locks. Some examples; segments which are part of BDP, U-turn prevention, or using micro-doglegs, or other complex intersection setups.

Closures

See Connecticut/Closures for a list of LONG TERM Road Closures & Changes to Traffic Flow that impact the Waze Map.

Places

Connecticut follows the USA standard for Places. Do not deviate from the guidelines without first obtaining consensus to do so via the state forum linked on this page.

Minimum Information

All Places added to the map must contain the following entries:

Proper primary category

Name

Address (including house numbers)

Placed in the correct location on the map

If a phone number is entered in the Place information, please format as: (###) ###-####. Please correct the layout of any phone numbers you encounter while editing.

Reminder: Data from proprietary third-party sources (such as Google Maps or Yelp) is not an acceptable source! Please use data only from government resources (i.e. GIS), the website of a business (be careful with business Facebook pages as many are auto-generated and may be inaccurate) and other primary, non-copyrighted sources. For more information, review External Sources or contact a senior editor.

Locking Standards

Lock Level Standards for Places in Connecticut

PLACE TYPE

LOCK LEVEL

Military Installations / Airports

4

Hospitals / Urgent Care / Police & Fire Dept

4

National & State Parks and Monuments

4

Gas Stations / Charging Stations

3

Schools / Universities / Colleges

3

Government Buildings / Consulates

3

Parking Lot Areas

3

City and Local Parks

2

All Places that have complete information (see Minimum Acceptable Information above) are to be locked at Level 2. This is to prevent loss of data due to automatic acceptance of Place Update submissions via the Waze app from trusted users or Place Update Request approvals from other editors using WME without careful examination.

If you do not have a high enough enough rank to lock the place as indicated, please lock it as high as you can, and ask a more senior editor to lock it higher.

Naming Places & Harmonization

Connecticut follows national guidance for Place names.

In an effort to standardize names for Places with multiple locations across the region, Connecticut syncs with the New England PNH (place name harmonization) registry. When editing, please ensure Places in Connecticut use the appropriate category name, as well as the listed spelling. This is necessary for the proper display of any advertising associated with the site (i.e. the recent Panera and Subway campaigns) and will (hopefully) help prevent the creation of duplicate entries. The WMEPH script (described below) is a great tool to help with standardization.

Mapping Area Places

Area Mapping

When creating an Area, map it to the "fence line" of the area.

For instance, if you are mapping a shopping center, this means that you map the area to cover the shopping center buildings, and the parking lots out to the outer ring road (if applicable). If there is no ring road, or for smaller shopping centers, map to the curb line.

If you are mapping a school, you would map out to the fence line (if visible) or to a reasonable distance from the school. Contact an AM, SM, CM, or Champ for assistance.

Area/Point Combinations

Places which are part of a larger encompassing Area Place (i.e. place points for specific building within a university Area, separate ER entrances in a hospital Area, etc.) should be named with their unique name followed by a hyphen and the name of the larger area they belong to. For example "ER - Hospital Name". Please also review the USA Places standards for Area-Point Combinations.

Hospital / Medical Care Facilities

Hospital Mapping

The special category of Hospital / Medical Care is used for facilities which provide emergency medical care such as Hospitals, Emergency Rooms and urgent care clinics (which truly provide walk-in, no-appointment-necessary, urgent medical services). Clinics, doctors' offices, outpatient facilities and other medical offices which do not offer urgent medical care should use the Office category.

Please review the detailed guidelines on the mapping of these facilities at Hospitals & Urgent Care before adding/editing emergency medical care facilities.

Parking Lots

Connecticut follows USA guidance for Parking Lots. In general, Parking Lot Areas (PLAs) should be added for all lots including businesses with small parking lots (fewer than 10 spaces). Any improvements are helpful, but editors are encouraged to start with popular lots with heavy usage, map problem flags or update requests; public (unrestricted public access) facilities including Park & Ride lots; and restricted lots (some lot restrictions apply, e.g. for customers, visitors, etc.) particularly those associated with stadiums and event venues, shopping centers, etc.

Naming for PLAs dedicated to one address or business should be "Parking - <business name>" or "Parking - <house # & street name>"

Consistent with national guidance, Park & Ride lots should always be named "Park & Ride" however, lots with specific identities may be further customized with unique identifiers (for example "Park & Ride - Batterson Park").

Links to External Providers

Creating and editing links to External Providers is currently permitted for Rank 3 editors and above.

Editors are encouraged to link Waze Places to the corresponding external provider place (typically Google Maps) via the External Provider field any time Places are edited. By linking sites, when Wazers select a destination from search results in the app, they'll always be routed to the navigation stop point associated with the Waze place - regardless of whether the driver selected a Google or Waze search result, which will help avoid routing problems resulting from inaccurate Google PIN locations.

Waze Places can link to up to four External Provider references, and editors are encouraged to connect all relevant links. A common example of this would be linking a Waze gas station area place to the external provider links for the gas station, an ATM located within the station and the associated convenience store. Please also ensure the links are correct - be sure to check the address of the attached links following a save.

Helpful Scripts

If you are working on places, we recommend considering a few scripts which can make the editing process a lot more efficient. As always with scripts, be cautious and please reach out to a senior editor with any questions on how they work.

WME Place Harmonizer (WMEPH) standardizes names, formats data, provides an easy interface for adding services and automatically locks once the minimum information has been added. For chains, please submit new chain data for any that are not in the database. Note: WMEPH is now available for all editors, including R1.

WME Closest Segment helps editors determine the closest segment to the navigation stop point of a place. The script shows a line from a selected point place (or its navigation stop point for area places) to the nearest road segment.

Additional Links

Cameras

Not every camera-looking device at an intersection is a speed or red light camera. Generally speaking:

a speed camera takes a photograph of a vehicle when it passes by the camera at too high a speed.

a red light camera takes a photograph of a vehicle that enters an intersection after the light is red. In some areas, it takes the photograph when a vehicle is not clear of the intersection some period after the light turns red.

Laws regarding speed and red light cameras vary between the states and territories, so be sure to understand the details of camera legality in Connecticut.

Based on information researched at the time this page was created, red light and speed cameras are illegal statewide in Connecticut.

No other camera types should be mapped in Waze.

To do list

Many states and territories keep an active list of pending or closed actions that need to be done in the state by the editors. All editors are welcome to contribute to the list of activities.

This section is intended to offer guidance to editors on areas of particular need of attention to the Waze map in Connecticut and to communicate the statewide projects. Key editing priorities include:

Respond to Update Requests (URs). URs are submitted by Wazers through the app as they drive, and often are the best clue as to problems with the map. Editors are encouraged to try to solve these issues, and should feel free to reach out to senior editors for help. Be sure to read the USA standard for Update Requests (URs) outlined Update Requests in Waze Map Editor and the expanded guidelines for UR lifecycle management in CT UR Resolution Policy.

Review of new or updated Place Points (PP) or Residential Place Points (RPP). As Wazers submit new/updated information on places, editors need to review and approve these submissions before they are added to the map. We get a lot of good input, but some need correction and additional information to be fully functional and assist with navigation. Editors are encouraged to review the wiki section on Place Moderation and tackle some of the many open PP and RPP in Connecticut. WMEPH is a useful tool.

Connecticut-Specific To Do List. The Waze Connecticut editor team keeps an active list of projects and the associated tasks which need to be addressed across the state by editors. The intention is to provide a centralized resource for all editors to access to help ensure our valuable time is used as effectively as possible. This list is updated and prioritized by senior editors and Area Managers - please contact any of us with any questions or recommendations.

Waze Connecticut Priority List

The Waze Connecticut "To Do List" items are reviewed and prioritized by determining the number of end users benefited by a task and how they impact the successful use of the app, and generally fall under 4 categories:

Waze new feature rollouts

Update Request Follow-ups

Map Error Followups

Statewide Projects

Other

Update Request Resolution Policy

Connecticut follows the USA standard for Update Requests (URs) outlined HERE. Following are expanded guidelines for managing the lifecycle of a UR in Connecticut.

Update Request Lifecycle

Connecticut has adopted a 1/4/7 day schedule when responding to Update Requests.

Our goal is to respond to new URs within 24 hours. If the solution is obvious, fix the issue, leave a comment, and close out the report as "Solved". Otherwise, if there's ANY ambiguity to the problem, leave a comment asking for further clarification. This starts the UR response clock as Day 1.

If the reporter hasn't responded within 4 days of the initial comment, leave a reminder comment that additional information is required to resolve the report and it will be closed soon if there is no response.
If the reporter replies with the required information, the issue is resolved and the report is closed as appropriate. If further clarification is still required, the response clock starts over at Day 1 as the editor awaits new information.

If the reporter does not responded after 7 days from the initial editor comment, leave a comment letting the reporter know the UR is being closed, and save the report as "Not identified".
If you find a UR which is older than 7 days which has not been touched by another editor but requires additional information to resolve, apologize for the late response and ask if the reporter still remembers the problem and can clarify. This starts the UR response clock as Day 1.

Update Request Ownership

All editors are considered to have equal ownership and responsibility for all URs in the State of Connecticut.

All editors are encouraged to attempt to resolve URs at any point during their lifecycle, provided the response time guidance is followed, even if other editors happen to be actively working the report.

If an editor has asked for clarification and received a response from the reporter, as a courtesy, please give the initial editor a few days to work on a resolution before taking over the UR.

Things to remember

The main objective is to resolve legitimate map issues, not just to close URs. Take the time to understand the issue and ensure the reporter has the allotted time to respond.

Even though you may be a volunteer editor, you still represent Waze; be professional and objective with your responses.

Keep responses short; some folks might be responding in the Waze app and reading long responses can be a pain!

You should always leave a comment on a UR, even if you're just closing out old reports.

Plugins such as URO+, UR Comments, and UR-MP Tracking can make responding to URs much easier. Check them out!

Be sure to review the Wiki documentation on Handling Update Requests, especially the section about Response Etiquette.

Area Managers

The table below identifies the editors also designated as Area Managers or higher who are editing in Connecticut. If you have any questions, please consider contacting them directly as needed. If you are an Area Manager that covers Connecticut, or a USA Country Manager that does a lot of work in Connecticut, please add yourself to this list (alphabetical by username) in the correct rank section.

The editor who also serves as the Regional Coordinator for Connecticut is automatically listed at the top of the table. That editor may not be highly active in this state and therefore may not be listed separately in the table.